The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to beam management for connected discontinuous reception (C-DRX) with an advanced grant indicator (AGI).
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include fourth generation (4G) systems such as a Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) systems, and fifth generation (5G) systems which may be referred to as New Radio (NR) systems. These systems may employ technologies such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), or discrete Fourier transform-spread-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or network access nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
Wireless communication systems may operate in millimeter wave (mmW) frequency ranges, e.g., 28 GHz, 40 GHz, 60 GHz, etc. Wireless communications at these frequencies may be associated with increased signal attenuation (e.g., path loss), which may be influenced by various factors, such as temperature, barometric pressure, diffraction, etc. As a result, signal processing techniques, such as beamforming, may be used to coherently combine energy and overcome the path losses at these frequencies. Due to the increased amount of path loss in mmW communication systems, transmissions from the base station and/or the UE may be beamformed.
A UE may operate in a discontinuous reception (DRX) mode (e.g., a C-DRX mode) where the UE transitions between an active state (e.g., where the UE wakes up during an On Duration to determine if data is available for the UE) and a sleep state (e.g., where the UE shuts down various hardware/processes to conserve power). Conventionally, the UE may determine if data is available by monitoring a control channel, such as a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). The PDCCH may carry or otherwise convey an indication that the base station has data ready to transmit to the UE. In a mmW wireless communication system, the mmW base station (e.g., a next generation nodeB (gNB)) may need to beam sweep the PDCCH transmissions to mitigate high path losses associated with mmW transmissions. This may result in the UE attempting to decode the PDCCH multiple times and/or wake up for a longer time period to receive and decode the PDCCH transmissions and/or allow for beam management. Power consumption at the UE using such techniques may be high.